6. Traits, states, and events

The scope of elements one might record for a named
entity is large. The TEI provides three generic elements,
and some specific ones.

We identify three main classes of information:

characteristics or traits which do not,
by and large, change over time

characteristics or states which hold
true only at a specific time

events or incidents which may lead to a
change of state or, less frequently, trait

For a person, typical traits are such things as <faith>,
<sex>, <socEcStatus>; typical states are such things as
<occupation>, <residence>, <education>; typical
events are such things as <birth> and <death>.

13. Sources

Responsibility and uncertainty about the sources can be asserted by using
attributes from the att.editLike class:

<orgxml:id="MXY" type="tribe" resp="#herodotus"><orgName>The Maxyans</orgName><country>Libya</country><desc>According to Herodotus, they were a west Libyan
tribe who said that they were descended from the men
of Troy.</desc></org>

14. Dates and Periods

The support for dates in TEI P5 has concentrated on enabling greater use of international
standards (W3C and ISO)

<date> contains a date in any format

<time> contains a phrase defining a time of day in any format

15. Example

<placexml:id="leipzig-univ"><placeName>University of Leipzig</placeName><eventtype="foundation"><desc>The university was founded on <datewhen="1409-12-02">December 2, 1409</date>.
</desc></event></place>

16. W3C Date Formats

Thanks to the mapping to W3C (att.datable.w3c) and ISO date formats, automatic
processing and validation of expression of dates and times are now allowed

att.datable.w3c provides attributes for normalization of elements that contain datable
events using the W3C datatypes

@when

supplies the value of a date or time in a standard form

@notBefore

specifies the earliest possible date for the event in standard form

@notAfter

specifies the latest possible date for the event in standard form

@from

indicates the starting point of the period in standard form

@to

indicates the ending point of the period in standard form

The W3C standard form for dates is YYYY-MM-DD.

17. Example

<placexml:id="leipzig-univ2"><placeName>University of Leipzig</placeName><!--…--><eventtype="opening" notBefore="1409-09-09"><desc>The <foreignxml:lang="la">Alma mater
Lipsiensis</foreign> opened in 1409, after it
had been officially endorsed by Pope Alexander
V in his Bull of Acknowledgment on
(September 9 of that year).</desc></event></place>

18. ISO Date Fomats

For some uses the subset of ISO 8601 which is used by the W3C might not be enough, so
the TEI provides an optional att.datable.iso class to give the following attributes if
needed:

@when-iso

the value of a date or time in a standard form

@notBefore-iso

the earliest possible date for the event

@notAfter-iso

the latest possible date for the event

@from-iso

the starting point of the period

@to-iso

the ending point of the period

@dur-iso

the length of this element in time

The ISO standard, for example, allows specifying dates and durations with a precision
by omitting some digits to the left, while the W3C datatypes require in most cases
conformance to a stricter precision.

19. Example

20. Time Periods and Relative Chronology

Time periods and relative chronology can also be defined.

<encodingDesc><classDecl><taxonomyxml:id="periods"><categoryxml:id="hellenistic"><catDesc><reftarget="http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Hellenistic"> Hellenistic</ref>. Commonly treated as <datenotBefore="-0323" notAfter="-0031"/>. </catDesc></category><!--…--></taxonomy></classDecl></encodingDesc><!--…--><p> The city was built near a marble quarry which was extensively exploited in the
<dateperiod="#hellenistic">Hellenistic</date> and <dateperiod="#roman">Roman</date> periods.</p>